'EWA BEACH — Residents in a previously peaceful Ewa by Gentry neighborhood were in shock yesterday, the morning after gunshots at 91-1635 Kaukolu St. left the husband and wife who owned the house dead, and the couple's four children suddenly without parents.

Police investigators described the incident as a murder-suicide that was the result of a domestic dispute in which the 39-year-old man shot and killed the 38-year-old woman before turning the gun on himself.

Although police did not release the names of the couple, public records list them as Domingo Dikito — whom neighbors knew as "Bunny" — and his wife, Della.

Stunned neighbors said the tranquility was shattered shortly before midnight Friday by a series of rapid-fire gunshots followed by screams.

"Oh, yes, I heard the shots," said Sally Bayang, who lives across the street, and whose son is a friend of the Dikitos' 19-year-old son, the oldest of the couple's four children.

"I was about to go to sleep and all at once I heard 'Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!' continuously — five times, nonstop. And then a few minutes later we heard a girl screaming and crying," Bayang said.

She said the incident has left her so upset that she has been unable to focus on anything else since.

Around the same time Bayang's husband, Pepe, was dialing 911 on his cell phone, two doors down from the Dikito residence, Marion Uemoto said she was awakened by her grandson, Jordan Scanlan, 13, who said, "Grandma, I just heard about seven shots — and I heard somebody yelling, 'Stop! Stop!' "

Scanlan, who is a friend of the Dikito children, recalled the shooting yesterday, which he said had bothered him.

"It was about 11:50 at night and I was downstairs getting a drink and I heard about seven shots," he said. "It was like two shots, and a pause, and four or five more shots. And then I went and told my grandma."

Later, Scanlan said he also heard the screams coming from the Dikitos' garage and recognized the voice of the couple's youngest of three daughters. He said his mother, Michele Uemoto, who arrived home from Wal-Mart shortly after the incident, went to the home of the Dikitos' next-door neighbor, where two of the couple's daughters had run after the shootings.

"He was telling my mom that the daughters came over and said, 'My daddy just shot my mom, and then he shot himself,' " Scanlan said.

Michele Uemoto said she regarded the family as good people, and Bunny Dikito as a good person.

"He had his problems," she said, fighting back tears. "But he got his life together, and after coming off the streets and buying himself a home, I take my hat off to him because he worked real hard, seven days a week sometimes, providing for his kids.

"I never expected this. He made some wrong choices. But he got his act together."

She was especially concerned for the youngest daughter, who she said was close to her father, but who was trying to protect her mother when the shooting occurred.

"She saw everything," she said. "I can't imagine what she's going through mentally."

Yesterday, the Dikitos' children were being cared for by family.

Family members had gathered at the house but declined to comment.

Other neighbors recalled the Dikitos as a friendly couple.

"I knew them, but I didn't know them well," said Horace Dudoit III, who was returning home from work and was startled to see police squad cars and yellow crime scene tape wrapped around the Dikito home.

"We'd see each other and wave," he said of the couple. "And the guy, you know, he was nice. I was just hearing from the neighbors what happened after I got home. They were saying they heard arguments and yelling. And then the shots.

"You know, there was one stray bullet that went through the garage door and across the street."

That bullet blew a hole in the fence outside the home of Selena Schuelke, who lives directly across the road from the Dikito home. She said when she came outside to see why so many police were in the neighborhood, she noticed something she hadn't seen before.

"I could see light coming through a hole in my fence," Schuelke said. "And I thought, 'I've never seen that before.' "

Schuelke said police looked for the bullet in her backyard, but were unable to find it. They told her to let them know if it turned up.

"I don't know what set the husband off," Schuelke said. "He seemed so cordial, always saying hi. I guess sometimes things get so hard you don't know how to deal with it."

Schuelke's neighbor, Faauliuli Suati, could only express sorrow.

"It's so sad," she said. "We've never had anything like this before. This is always a peaceful neighborhood. My neighbors said they both died. And I heard the kids crying.

"It's just so very sad."